April: how to write a popular fiction short story with multi published and award winning Alison Stuart. Plus how to use that short story to grow your email list, with Sara Hood. Full info is here.

May: creating sensational cover art with Charmaine Ross, plus growing your Facebook following without spending a red cent, and with advertising that won't break the bank, with Sara Hood. Full info is here.

What is a Writers Unconference?It's a full day workshop for writers of popular fiction who want to sell more books. There are two presenters,and it's fully catered (morning and afternoon tea, sandwich lunch, cake. Always cake). Plus a glass of bubbles to end the day. There are never more than 2o in any workshop. Get all the info about Unconferences here.

Conditions apply: the discount is because we are testing the venue and would like your feedback on it. So cheaper price, but you have to work for it!

I hear lots of things as I wander around the various writer circles, but one that comes up quite often is a frustration, even anger, at having to ‘do marketing’. So can I put my life coach hat on briefly and say that I find this quite worrisome. It points to an underlying energy sapping, soul destroying emotion that if left untreated will start to leach the joy out of creating your wonderful stories. How many times do you hear about a writer getting burnout because ‘they can’t do it all’? And they’re quite right: you can’t do it all if you’re resenting the time you’re spending on marketing.

So here are three self care tips for writers that I trust will help prevent you from becoming one of those writers with burnout. Don’t leave your stories untold!

Give yourself permission to be angry. Then let it go.Get up on the nearest table or stand on the back deck and shout out to the world “it’s wrong that my publisher won’t do the marketing for me”. Or "it's wrong that on one can find my book in Amazon!". Or make it shorter and just shout “it’s wrong!”. Feel the anger. (Hide any knives or heavy objects first.) Let it flow down to your toes and the tips of your fingers. Wiggle your fingers. Then take three deep breaths and each time as you breath out … let it go. Imagine the frustration and anger flowing out of you with each exhalation. Sounds daft? Try it. You might want to wait for everyone to be out but then let rip. Believe me, it works. You may have to do it more than once but just do it!

Give yourself permission to be a pragmatist It’s much less stressful.We all know that the world is not perfect. It’s a wonderful place by and large, but it’s full of imperfect humans and imperfect structures and systems. It’s wonderful to be an idealist and to clearly be able to see what should be done and by whom and when. But it’s exhausting. The reality is that you can’t change what’s out of your power to change. If a publisher can’t or won’t do your marketing or do enough of it (as they should, says the idealist), then be a pragmatist.. Railing against the way the world of publishing has changed will sap your energy and your spirits. Your editor may well know that they could or should be doing more for you. The trouble is that in this 21st century world of lean organisational structures and piling on the workload under the mantra of ‘productivity’ they don’t have any more resources. You want to sell more of your books? So do they. Work together on it. Be a helpful pragmatist!

Give yourself permission to spend time on book marketing.

Now you’ve got over your anger (or are starting to) and put the idealism aside for a few minutes (but not forever, because the world needs idealists), give yourself permission to do a bit of book marketing.

The key is to have a plan.

If you just fiddle about you’ll be back at point one very quickly because you’ll have invested precious time and not got any results, or not got any results that take you anywhere useful. With a plan you just do a bit every day and then move on to something else. Think of it like emptying the dishwasher or going to the supermarket, but more fun. It’s a routine task. But imagine if you emptied the dishwasher and just shoved the plates and forks in any old cupboard. Or went to the supermarket and bought a random selection of food. What use would it be if you got home and found you had a bottle of Domestos, a packet of dry pasta and a box of Weetbix? Have you any idea how many people do this with their book marketing? Because they had no list and no goals. Is it any wonder some get so frustrated that they want to throw plant pots? Write a plan with some goals and then just do it. Doesn’t have to be the world’s best plan. It just need to be a reasonable plan. As they say in therapy circles “it just needs to be good enough”. That’s not an excuse to be slapdash. It’s permission to not be perfect every time. Allocate some time each day (five minutes is enough once you have it up and running). And then just make it happen.

Does any of that sound like you? Why not try it? Tell me how you go. I’d love to hear.

NEW ONLINE WORKSHOP: October 2017

Baffled about how to start your book marketing? Or looking to turbo charge your early stage (or early-ish)book marketing? This online workshop is for you. We'll go through 7 simple, proven steps to create a book marketing plan that is easy to create, easy to implement and won’t break the bank. It will be the foundation for the rest of your career as a writer.

And also solves the eternal problem of ‘what do I write about?’ on social media! Yay!

Using a learn-at-your-leisure format, there is a PDF each week for three weeks, a community support group, and the final week is a webinar, which is also recorded.

What are the 7 steps?It breaks down into three sections:

1. Getting your head in the right place

Getting a marketing mindset ... lean in

Who am I? Key tip: you are the last person to know!

2. Doing stuff

Website ... did you know you can do without one (for a bit, anyway)? Plus super simple website ideas

Social media .. yes or no? Why and which

Email .. yes, email. Still important

3. Getting discoverable

Optimising your book 'packaging' - what you absolutely must do and why it's important

The webinar in the final week is for questions and any areas where participants have asked for demonstrations, case studies or examples.

What is learn at your leisure?Exactly that! Each week a PDF will be posted to the group and you can read it when you wish. The webinar: you can turn up live or watch the recording later. Your call. If you're unable to attend the webinar, you can send questions and I'll answer them for you to catch up with later. There is also an online community. Dial in and leave message, have conversations, ask questions ... That community, though, only lasts for the duration of the course.​Sound like what you're looking for?

This is being run through the Romance Writers of Australia. RWA members get a discount but everyone is welcome! Prices are in Australian dollars and there is an additional 30c booking fee:

RWA member living in Australia: $30RWA member not living in Australia: $27.27Non RWA member living in Australia: $80Non RWA members not living in Australia: $72.72

I'm Sara Hood. I have ...oh.. more than 30 years experience in marketing with big brands like Sony and Ericsson and DuPont, as well as in the creative industries. Then I decided to write novels. Hah! I realised that so much of what I'd learned through that long career is relevant to book marketing .. so here I am ....

If you enjoyed this please comment, please share. If you didn't, please comment ... tell me what's missing or not your experience. I always love to hear constructive feedback.

Have you any idea how many people ask “are blog tours worth the bother?”.

The short answer to that question is yes and no. Hah! Bet you hate that, hey?

Generally, though, if someone is asking that question they are usually wanting me to say ‘no, don’t bother’ because they want to be let off the hook. They hate doing blog tours. Don’t see any value from them. But everyone else is doing them so they’re afraid of missing out.

The reality is that blog tours can be useful, if you put in the effort.

Most writers just want reviews. And that’s fine. But only up to a point. You can’t expect to get a slew of good reviews and then, magically, sales will follow. They might if you’re a major brand name. Or you have a book that’s just so totally wow that people will make the effort to find it and buy it.

But those writers and books are rare beasts. Readers are busy people. They skim. They forget. They need to be reminded. In short, in the nicest possible way, they need to be spoon fed.

And remember the old adage for digital marketing: people buy from people they know, like and trust. Blog tours use are a great opportunity to build a relationship with that blogger’s readers, so they can get to know, like and trust you. And they will want to buy your books.

Join us for a small group, one day, social workshop with writing craft and book marketing. Finishing off with a glass of bubbly and a proper chat.

12 August 2017. Caulfield North, Vic. $99 per person to include working lunch and cake (always cake) and bubbles. Maximum 10 people. 9am to 6pm.

I've teamed up with multi published young adult writer Ebony McKenna for a day of laughs, work, laughs, more work and then bubbles. And cake.

We're calling it an unconference, because it's not a formal, stodgy event.

Morning: Ebony McKenna and her structure workshop

Ebony has three workshops she runs regularly and this is definitely my favourite:

Structure is your friend: 13 main scene cards (great for plotters and pantsers ... for pantsers, it helps you put some structure to your sprawling first draft .. yay for that!). That will be a half day workshop and the scene cards are provided. Bring your troublesome manuscript or latest work in progress, and be prepared to work! Including coffee and cake break.

Lunchtime forum: indie publishing share-a-thonWe'll take 90 minutes for lunch and hold a forum about the ins and outs of indie publishing. Everyone can share their tips and traps, and brainstorm ideas. Lunch will be make-your-own sandwiches, with gluten free and standard bread, plus vegetarian and omnivore fillings. Plus more cake.

Afternoon: Sara Hood (me!) and how to sell more books - customised workshop

Once we know who is coming I'll email you about your biggest issues with your book marketing and will build a workshop that, hopefully, addresses everyone's challenges. Building an email list, avoiding being blocked by your email provider, do I really need to be on Twitter, building a sales funnel, not wasting time flapping about on Facebook! What is worrying you at the moment? Or what would you like to do better? Including coffee and cake break.

End of the day: Bubbles and recap

A glass of something with bubbles in (sparkling wine or sparking water, your choice) and we'll recap what we all got from the day. Close at 6pm sharp!

SPECIAL FOOD NOTE AND WARNING: if you have special food needs please advise and we'll do our best to help, but if it's life threatening please be aware this is a home kitchen and we can't guarantee there won't be cross contamination. Please email me to discuss.

Added extra: if you wish to stay in the evening you're welcome to join some of us as we lurk on Twitter to see who has won the annual awards from the Romance Writers of Australia. We'll have a whip round for pizza and red wine, and haunt the internets to see who will take out these prestigious awards, as profiled in Booktopia.​HOW TO BOOKHere's the booking form. Fill that out and send it back to me and I'll raise a PayPal invoice. Can that be paid before you arrive? Then we can be sure how many we're catering for. So there will be plenty of cake.

I'm Sara Hood and I have more than 30 years experience in marketing. My job is honest-to-goodness book marketing. No frills, not expensive, just simple, straightforward ways to sell more books.

Sounds like what you need? Email me! Or sign up for this one day unconference. It will be fun. And did you notice it will include cake?

Looking for some help? By someone who talks normal English and doesn't expect you to become a marketing freak? Why not try working with me? Just $99 an hour. Face to face or by computer using one of those fancy sharescreen programs (which is super easy to use!). Email me!

To be honest, I wrote MailChimp in the headline just to make it simple. It can be any email service provider, so when I've written 'MailChimp' below just substitute your email service's name.

Just about every writer appreciates you have to have a great email list, managed by a great email service provider like MailChimp. Just about every writer also knows it’s all too easy to suddenly find that MailChimp has suspended your account because you had too many unsubs or abuse reports.

Avoiding it, though, isn’t that hard if you know the two cardinal rules for list building.

Why does MailChimp care about your email list?

Quite simply, for MailChimp it’s existential. Bad list practice by users threatens the very existence of companies like MailChimp, which can be blocked from the internet if their users aren’t following good practice. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never had an issue before; they don’t know you from that bar of soap. Do it once and they figure you’re a higher risk to do it again. They don’t know if you just bought a list (don’t ever do this). They don’t know if your writer friend just gave you their list (ack!). They don’t know that you haven’t just sold your lovely clean list to a spammer (it happens). To be brutally frank, they don’t care about you. They can’t care about you when their own existence is at stake and if that means suspending your account they won’t hesitate to do it.

Isn’t that an exaggeration?

Maybe, but not much. Under the CAN-SPAM Act if companies like MailChimp have too many users who are failing to practice good list hygiene then their entire company – yes, the whole of MailChimp (or any other email service provider) - can be blocked from the worldwide web. They have to have a zero tolerance policy. And that ought to be a good thing for you, because it means if you keep a clean and sparkly list with a reputable company like MailChimp then your emails are more likely to get through to your readers. It keeps the email world working.

So how do you avoid getting blocked?

I have two pieces of best advice. My two cardinal rules.

The first is to focus on quality and not quantity when you are list building. Yes, it may be fantastic that a particular promotion partner can provide you with a few hundred new contacts, but not if they are of a low quality. Typically this happens when it’s a service that offers a free download of one of your books in return for the reader signing up for your newsletter. Sounds great, but these services are riddled with people who are freebie-junkies, who are addicted to downloading, don’t read much of what they download, and never buy anything. These are low quality contacts. They tend to be the ones who get annoyed when you want something back in return for that freebie they jumped to download. Are there real readers in there? Of course there are, but it’s the old tale about sifting the wheat from the chaff. So:

Look at how the provider promotes their services to readers. If it’s all about freebies, then it should be no surprise if they then attract more than a disproportionate share of freebie-junkies.

How well do they explain to those readers what the deal is? Does the reader clearly understand that they are being expected to sign up for your newsletter in return for this freebie?

Do they provide opt in/out options for your newsletter? How clear is that in the process for the reader? You may think that’s not a good idea because it reduces the number of contacts you gather, but you want contacts who want to be on your list, but not contacts who are there under sufferance. It’s that old adage about quality not quantity.

People can (and do) get seriously annoyed when, naively or not, they didn’t realise that by downloading that free book they would then get an email from the author. And from every other author they downloaded a freebie from. For many, this is a slew of emails from authors they can barely remember they downloaded. One participant at a workshop I ran said she got emails from fifty writers after she participated in one freebie download marathon. FIFTY! No wonder people unsub. I think I’d be tempted to hit the abuse button as well by the time I got to the fifteenth, never mind the fiftieth. They aren’t reporting you as the abuser, they’re just saying ‘this is abuse!’.

Whenever you recruit for your email list at library talks, in your books, on guest blogs, wherever, make it clear that they are signing up for a regular newsletter. If you offer a lead magnet (a free something to encourage people to sign up) make it abundantly clear what the trade off is: they get this lovely thing for free in return for being added to your email list. Most people won't mind if they know that the deal is. Some will squeal because they just want the freebie. Fine. Let them go. It's your work so it's your choice how you make it available.

So cardinal rule number one is to focus on quality not quantity. You want to add people who want to be there, not people who have to be there.

The cardinal rule is that your first newsletter to that new reader needs to be the absolute best-ever newsletter so that unsubbing is the last thing on their mind.

Actually cardinal rule number two is make every newsletter the absolute best ever

But especially that first one after you just added a slew of new contacts.

You know that thing about ‘you never get a second chance to make a good first impression’? That.

Here’s a tip: If you have written “I”, “me” or “my” anywhere in the first paragraph of that first newsletter then it’s pretty likely that you are NOT on track for the best email newsletter ever. The reader has added themself to your list (or agreed to be added to your list) probably based on a passing whim. For example, they wanted the free download or they met you at a library talk. At this point you are recruiting ‘likely strangers’. They don’t really know you yet. You haven’t earned the right (yet) to talk about yourself. Arriving at a drinks party full of strangers, you don’t immediately button hole the nearest person to bang on about yourself. Same here.

Be gracious and generous and a good guest at someone else’s party.

Be the person that everyone wants to invite again by providing great value. Yes that could be another freebie (sigh), but it doesn’t have to be anything of financial value. It could be entertainment value. So give them a rip-snortingly entertaining email. You don’t need to tap dance or tell jokes or show how you can balance a wine glass on your nose. What is ‘entertaining’ will vary with every writer and her readers. As I’ve said many a time, I’m one of those people who think reading The Economist is an entertaining way to spend a spare evening on the sofa. It takes all sorts to make the world. Your readers may enjoy relatively serious topics. They might not. What would they find entertaining?

Don’t know? Then experiment. Whatever you do: don’t presume.

A couple more bits of advice:

Avoid the ‘shit flick’The music industry talks about the ‘shit flick’. Someone on their phone is listening to new tunes on Spotify. They listen for what… ten seconds? And then they say ‘that’s shit’ and flick to the next one. You can see why it’s called the shit flick. It applies to everything from Spotify to Tinder to that email you just sent. How can you avoid the shit flick? You have to grab ‘em immediately.

Remember: you may think your email is the most important thing in the world. Your readers don’t.

They are reading it in a sneaky two minutes at work, on their daily commute, whilst waiting to pick up the eldest from piano lesson/basketball practice, waiting for the pot to boil .. whatever. They are busy folks doing lots of things at once, filling time, having a brain break ...

Keep true to your brandIt’s also important to remain in keeping with your author brand. You wouldn’t expect a best-selling paranormal romance author to share knitting patterns or celebrity gossip. That is, unless the pattern is about knitting your own werewolf finger puppet or the gossip is about whether the rumour is true that Tom Hiddleston has been cast in the movie of her book.

Top tips for best ever email marketingHere are some top tips to help your emails get opens and clicks:

Show don’t tell. Show them who you are, don’t tell them. Intrigue them to want to read your book by writing a great email, rather than sell, sell, sell.

Ask for the sale. Sure, show don't tell, but also don't forget to ask for the sale, but you don't have to ram it down their throats.

Create a compelling headline that’s all about what’s in it for them. Need some inspiration? There’s a fantastic free download from the ever valuable Jon Morrow (yes, you need to give him your email address). It’s designed for blog posts, but much of it is adaptable to email titles. Jon Morrow is also ethical and responsible. You can trust him with your email address.

Make sure your first para grabs ‘em by the ears. Many will see your screed in their preview screen or as a mobile snippet. People are busy, make it unmissable.

If you have another free read then offer it. BUT only if you have a plan for why you’re offering another freebie. Remember: You’re giving stuff away so you can sell more books, so you need to give away stuff that’s great AND that leads to an obvious next step, which is to buy your book. So you might give away the first two books in a series and in your next email make an offer for the third book. Or two short stories that lead into the series. Or whatever suits your work.

Keep it short. Three stories, max, in each email.

Use pics. I love Pexels for free pics. Good search, good quality and you can usually find something that suits. And Canva has a swag of pics you can use for free or US$1.

Do a personal intro. Most email services allow you to personalise the email, so collect people’s names as well as their email address. (Yeah, I forgot to to that when I set up my email .. duh!)

Do a personal sign off. With your signature, a pic of you and a message to leave them with. Warning: Don’t use your real signature! Create something else that looks signature-ish. Another warning: beware of free signature creators online (yes, such things do exist). They are rarely, if ever, truly free and will install software to your computer, add some spyware, harvest your email address or some other thing that makes it not really ‘free’. Use a handwriting font instead or if you have the design chops create something in a pro-design program.

That’s it. That’s my best advice for how to be a great email marketer and avoid getting canned by MailChimp et al.

And if your email service provider does get annoyed with you, be polite and reasonable back. They're dong their job, protecting their employer. Customer service at some companies isn't always thoughtful or even sensible, but work out what it is you need to do to make them happy again.

And download your list on the first or last day of each month or before you send out an email to a list that's now full of new contacts. Just in case.

Two simple cardinal rules:Cardinal rule 1: Focus on quality not quantity when building your list.Cardinal rule 2: create the best email ever, always

Feeling overwhelmed? Why? You now have the two keys that will help your emails really deliver great results. Nothing worth having is easy, but you have the keys.

Now get out there and make it happen!

If you have questions or more advice, feel free to pop it into the comments below.

Note: a shorter version of this article appeared in the June and July issues of Hearts Talk, the newsletter for members of the Romance Writers of Australia.

Looking for some help with your book marketing? By someone who talks normal English and doesn't expect you to become a marketing freak? Why not try working with me? Just $99 an hour. Face to face or by computer using one of those fancy sharescreen programs (which is super easy to use!). Email me!

Thank you for your support ....

Thank you to everyone who has supported marketing4writers in our journey. It's a hard thing getting a new business off the ground and every kind word, every bit of constructive criticism, every comment, every tiniest bit of thought from anyone and everyone has been noticed and much appreciated.

Wishing you a wonderful festive season, that Santa brings you lots of wonderful books to read, and that his elves have packed lots of your books into other people's Christmas sacks!